“Roger, Roger Über Alles…”

When you desert your post at the beginning of a new campaign, there’s a tendency to have to play some catch-up when you return. Especially when you’re a technophobic hermit with a serious case of burnout and other things to worry about. Yet we persevere.

That’s just my way of saying there’s a bunch of stuff out there right now. Wang and Odd (awd…”angry who dat,” get it? Best I could do, sue me), who are now the starting cornerbacks in addition to being excellent bloggers, each have analyses of the Saints’ gloriously epic victory in the year’s most meaningless game.

Andrew Juge, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything because…what the hell happened? Where’s SaintsNation? I go to the link in my own sidebar, and I wind up at “Bloguin!” They want to tell me what I missed on the premier of Hard Knocks. And the Seahawks quarterback competition. And the Olympics. And baseball. And hockey. Wtf? Andrew?

Then there’s actual news, like Johnny Patrick getting injured. Luckily we have Wang. But what happens if he gets carpal tunnel? Who goes in, me? Dave? Stu? This cornerback thing is starting to look ominous…for everyone else. Because the last time this happened, and we had to sign guys off the street, we only won a Super Bowl. And that was during the season. So I’m not panicking yet, much. I hope.

The Saints’ franchise and many followers are riding outrage of biblical proportion. The suspended players and coaches are being treated as martyrs in New Orleans — especially Payton — and to expect anything less of a fan base in a state that has long set vivid new standards for political chicanery was probably naïve all along. The team has decided the best way to make bricks out of straw in this whole unsettled mess is to channel their righteous indignation into an angry crusade that starts right now, right here in training camp, and goes something like this: If you thought bounties made us a scourge of the league before, you haven’t seen anything yet.

That’s rare enough. But she also raises a good point, which hasn’t been raised enough, which is: why did Goodell wait so long to punish the Saints if their behavior was truly heinous? Why did Goodell ban Sean Payton for a year in 2012 for stuff that allegedly was known about in 2010?

But there’s something else that is rarely raised, too, and here I’m afraid I’m going to go all Mike Godwin on you. That’s right: it’s time for a Nazi analogy, but not the one you think.

No, I’m not talking about Roger Goodell, here. I’m talking about the fans. The other fans: in Minnesota, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Seattle, wherever, who just shrug and say things like “the Saints are crybaby cheaters, they got caught, they should take it like a man,” etc. etc. ad nauseum. (Oh, wait…that was Stu.)

To quote Mr. Wang: welp. Turns out Poland got caught too. Did you know that Germany invaded Poland in retaliation for a Polish attack on the radio station in Gleiwitz? True. The Germans even produced a dead Pole to prove it, although his name wasn’t Vilma. Now, maybe being bombed flat and occupied for five years is too harsh a sanction…maybe Germany should have reduced Poland’s penalty to, say, a year’s occupation, and cut the bombing in half. Clearly an overreaction on their part, but let’s not pretend the Poles are innocent here.

Except, of course, they were. It was a complete put-up job…and to the world’s credit, it was the last straw. World War II and all that, and Hitler ended his days in a smoking jacket (and pants). Because the world came to its senses, recognized a trend, and decided to put a stop to it. After the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, the dismembering of Czechoslovakia, Starcaps, and Hitler’s private vendetta against James Harrison, it had become patently obvious that he recognized no limitations on his power. But before they could put a stop to his shenanigans, millions of people died, because

First they came for the Patriots,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Patriot.
Then they came for the Steelers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Steeler.
Then they came for the Saints,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Saint.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

What’s important here is not what penalty might have been appropriate for the Saints, who were clearly guilty of something. What’s important is, How do you know the Saints are guilty of something? How do you know the NFL is telling the truth? Perhaps the Saints are just the “canned goods” in Operation Aiello. The NFL says they have proof; but so did Germany. And like Germany, they refused to show it. Dressing up a dead prisoner in a Polish uniform is roughly the same thing as making a typed transcription of trumped-up notes that nobody gets to see. Very roughly. Without any of the mortal sin part, but still…it’s wrong.

More than that: it’s inadequate. No matter what penalty Roger Goodell imposed on the Saints, his first responsibility was to the truth. And the big question facing NFL fans isn’t, are the penalties fair? It’s not even, is the NFL telling the truth? It’s, who’s next?

Another good question is, how do we stop this son of a bitch? And the answer to that, all you other NFL fans, is: you stop being intellectually lazy, drop the partisanship, take an objective look not only at the evidence in this case but also at the standard operating procedure throughout Goodell’s tenure, and you kick in. You say, “I hate the fucking Saints like death [you poor benighted clodpate], but if we don’t stop Goodell he’s going to destroy football.” And then you storm the beaches in Normandy.

Okay, I haven’t got this completely figured out yet. I’m willing to take suggestions, though.

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Patriots, Steelers, Saints. Even America’s team and the Redskins got smackdowns for violating double secret probation. How many more before the madness ends? How long wilt thou forget me oh Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

Hitler’s atrocities didn’t truly stop until he was dead, and millions of other people had to die to accomplish that. I do hope Roger can be removed from power via at least slightly less traumatic means…

Wikipedia: Roger S. Goodell (born February 19, 1959) is the Commissioner of the National Football League (NFL), having been chosen to succeed the retiring Paul Tagliabue on August 8, 2006. He was chosen over four finalists for the position, winning a close vote on the fifth ballot before being unanimously approved by acclamation of the owners. He officially began his tenure on September 1, 2006, just prior to the beginning of the 2006 NFL season. Commentators have described him as “the most powerful man in sports”

I think we could do worse than Roger Goodell. Somebody more like DeMauricio Smith or whatever the NFLPA leader’s name is. That would be worse.
What’s wrong with Danny Aiello other than the crappy movies he appeared in?

(Whatever his name) Smith and Danny Aiello? Yeah, okay…..we could have them killed but I don’t see how that’s gonna make Saints fans feel any better. Except maybe those few who have the same first name as that Smith guy and the folks who are still looking for their refunds after paying to see “Hudson Hawk”.

Now there’s a thought: If Mr. Dave becomes so bored and decides he really doesn’t need the mere pittance that SB Nation pays him to recruit content providers, who would be the worst replacement for him? Not necessarily Andy, although that is a stomach turning notion.

As an alternative, jeff might be entertaining. He could threaten to quit due to insubordination every 3 days instead of once a year like Mr. Dave.

Okay, I get it……the one I used has caps which means the broad I’m banging won’t get knocked up. While you decided to go “raw” and will be subject to child support payments for the next two decades. Not to mention the sheer nastiness of doing a chick with an uncapped “hoo-haa”.

Don’t mind me, BCS. I’m still trying figure out what cuss words I’m gonna use the next time I visit CSC.

You know, you don’t have to paste in a link with 10,000 characters in it…you can just type “click here” (or something like it), then highlight the phrase, click on the “Insert Link” icon in the editing tools, and THEN paste in the link with 10,000 characters in it. That way it doesn’t break the page.

And not all of us have Facebook accounts, so what are you talking about?

I know. What I don’t know is what “break the page” means. I used the earth with the chain icon for my photo link earlier today and it didn’t work. Should have used the little indecipherable icon next to it. What is that, the moon coming up over the North Carolina “mountains” or a whale with a yellow box on its blow hole?

Okay. Well, it’s right on Frat Row, next to Tulane, so I see no reason why CVS wouldn’t want a location to put in a small drug store catering mostly to the college market. Okay, beer and condoms. Still, you could make a killing.

It would be kinda helpful if there was some quick and easy visual way to tell which comments are new and which we’ve read already… not sure if the software supports anything like that tho.

It would also be nice to be able to ignore annoying jackasses and hide their comments. Then they could be an idiot to their heart’s content and the rest of us could enjoy intelligent conversation with the rest of our friends around here.

I’ve decided that the direct approach is an unmitigated failure. It merely pumps up the already overinflated ego of an underachieving blowhard while wasting my far more usefully deployed efforts elsewhere.

Ignoring it may not make it go away, but it will reduce the time I spend rolling my eyes at moronic statements made merely to draw attention to the feebleminded attention who’re in question. It works swimmingly well at CSC when the resident self appointed know-it-all starts whinging about TOP….

I haven’t found a plug-in that can accomplish what you want. I’ll look again…maybe someone has come up with something. The trend on the web is to use one of the big commenting systems like LiveFyre or Disqus, which I hate and won’t use.

But there’s a way YOU can block the comments of anyone you like. You have to know how to make a custom stylesheet for your browser; then simply add this:

.comment-author-[user name here]
{
display: none;
}

The “user name here” part needs to be replaced with the user name of the person in lower case only, and with any spaces replaced by a hyphen. So, for instance, if you really hated bass players, it would be “.comment-author-gso-saints-fan”.

Hmm that’s an interesting idea… but so far there’s only one person in particular who annoyed the hell out of me. If he’s taking a nice long break I won’t have to worry about it. On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to practice just in case he comes back with a new name or something.

What about the “new comments” bit? I have a feeling that it’s not possible without using one of those other systems that you despise, but I do have to admit it would be nice if it was possible…

Actually, it should be possible if the plugin sets and tracks a session cookie. I believe that’s all that CSC does to accomplish that (although the way CSC uses javascript and cookies together in the most mind-bogglingly clumsy fashion isn’t anything I’d want to emulate). But I don’t know how to write plugins, so I’m limited to a strategy consisting of begging and waiting. Most of the developers seem to think it’s an excellent idea to allow one company to develop something, and then everybody adopts it. So someone else handles your comments, and someone else handles your polls, and someone else handles your emails, etc. etc. I’m old-fashioned in that I want everything under my control.

I am neither little, nor a member of the family Bufonidae. Oh, and while I’m not homophobic, I am not interested in Mr. Pid’s not-so-latent homosexual fantasies, so I can’t help him with any of his requests.

Is there any way to delete more than his account? Anyone have Jason Bourne’s cell number??

Oh, and why would he want to fuck a little toad? I mean, aside from the whole twisted bestiality angle, does the “little toad” mean he’s got a needle dick?

That would explain so much about his issues. On top of hiding the shame of his unnatural attraction to amphibians, he has the psychological damage from being inadequate to physically perform satisfactorily with a female of his own species. Any one of us might lash out in frustration and impotent rage under similar circumstances. Well, there is that whole none of us would be so messed up we’d want to copulate with a cold blooded bug eater with bumpy skin part…

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